Men - This is a great field. I'm still not convinced that Plushy will show up and since he's been away for so long, I think Chan will win. But he can make mistakes and he was beaten by Kozuka & Johnny at the GPF so it's not a foregone conclusion. I'm not sure Mroz will make much of an impression here; he's not terribly consistent, he's slow and the international judges don't seem terribly impressed by him. Of the lower ranked skaters, I'll be looking forward to seeing Amodio.

Ladies - The battle of Miki & Mao Leonova and any of the American ladies could win bronze. Given the inconsistency and downgrade potential of the three Americans, Leonova's consistency and homecourt advantage, Alena's my pick for bronze. But (IMO) Alissa, Kimmie and Ashley's best is better than Alena's best, but Alena is most likely to skate her best or close to it than any of the Americans. (did that make sense?)

Pairs - Pang & Tong vs Kawaguchi & Smirnov for gold. The field really drops off after that. McBrus are my pick for bronze, but if they skate like Skate Canada or Worlds, then Martyusheva & Rogonov could possibly upset them. Who's the Russian TBA? Iliushechkina & Maisuradze is my guess and they could be contenders.

Dance - DomShabs have the world title and the home advantage, but D&W could win here too. Shab's knees are a big factor. I'd love to see C&L get the bronze over Crone & Poirier. I'm excited to see what Zazoui can do for C&L!!

Frankly, I wouldn't put Leonova in the 'trio'. I believe that Alissa (who looked pretty good at Skate Detroit) or Ashley could beat her.

Alissa and Ashley could very well beat her, but that would require Alissa to skate 2 clean programs, which given her international record is unlikely. Alena already beat Alissa at Worlds adn Ashley at Junior Worlds. Ashley and Alissa are better when they skate cleanly, but IMO, it's far more likely that Alena will skate 2 clean programs.

Alena landed at least 5 triples in all her free skates last season (Worlds, JW,
Cup of Russia, Europeans, Cup of China and 2008 JW for that matter), except Russian nationals. I think it's anyone's game, based on what we saw last season.

Website was already there ...

Has anyone seen Alena skating/training since WTT? What do we know about her developments? She has high goals for this season:

"At the Russian Nationals my goal will be the first place, at the Europeans 2nd or 3rd, at the Olympics 5th or 6th" (from her site)

Well, as I know Alena is landing 3-3 and going to put it in both programs (3T-3T, but she is also working on 3F-3T), Tarasova helped her a lot with SP, so I think it will be possible for her. I think she can even be the next European champion, she beated all of the europeans at Worlds except Lepisto, but I think she can beat her too